Thursday, October 21, 2010

Preston Blair Red Hot Riding Stock Girl

My friend Jill sent me these frame grabs she made from Tex Avery's "Wild and Wolfy:.I wonder why there aren't more animated sexy girls?It seems like such a natural thing for cartoons.Of course it isn't easy to do.

These Tex Averey classics are a rare exception that shows it can be done, but I'd say one reason there aren't more is that sexy doesn't usually go with funny, and cartoons are usually more about funny.

That's a generalization that won't hold true for everyone, but I've heard the same philosophy many times. Also, maintaining a sexy girl design amidst squash and stretch cartooniness can be tricky.As Elana points out above, squash and strech has a different effect on such designs.

Perhaps even more of a reason for the lack of cartoon "babes" is that cartoons have been stuck in the kiddie show category in the public's mind since the golden age of television. If you made one now, most people would just complain it's inappropriate for their kids to watch it.

Spumco does the best girls since these Preston Blair ones, but I don't remember too many uses of them on R&S, and I'm guessing Nick wouldn't have signed off on the storyboards and popped 'em up at 11:00 Sunday morning.

I love this cartoon (actually all the Droopy cartoons Tex Avery and Mike Lah directed). However, that classic Preston Blair tended to be reused in a lot of Tex's cartoons. Guessing it was easier said than done to actually draw Red Hot Riding Hood and to animate her. We need more attractive cartoon characters period.

Unfortunately executives don't think that its in demand. But the biggest reason is that they don't want to spend the extra money to hire artists that are good enough to do it. I'm pretty sure that Quimby payed Preston Blair a lot of money to animate Red. Even back then if your skill was in demand you would be payed handsomely.

Regardless sexy women are a key part in the formula for wacky cartoon, they fit into many narratives as well as becoming the object of desire for many of the other characters. This is one of many key ingredients that today's cartoons lack.

Elana is right though, it can be easy to make an unintentionally ugly girl. That's probably why it's a good idea to have designated people, like Freddy Moore or Katie Rice who really love drawing girls to work on them.

About 2 1/2 years ago, I drew one of the key drawings of the girl from the Blair book for the strut. I still have it. I think it turned out pretty good but it took a long time just to get it to look right. I can only imagine how long it would take to do all the drawings to complete the strut!

Another gift from our friends, the Baby-boomers/hippies. They pretended to be all about sexual freedom, but hypocritically deemed it "sexist" to portray sexy girls in cartoons! Soon it became "insensitive" to caricature practically anyone; (previously, that was the whole reason cartoons ever existed in the first place.)

A period of wholesale bowdlerization followed, of classic Golden Age films on broadcast TV (and sometimes, even more inexcusably, independent home video) by the new regime of self-appointed, media Thought Police goons. Known euphemistically as political correctness, it used to be called just plain old censorship.

A Generation of Swine, as Hunter Thompson famously called them; they also pretended to be friends of the environment. In fact, they helmed the most environmentally destructive half-century in recorded human history, featuring species extinctions by the thousands.

Watching this short tonight and Red is skillfully well animated. The MGM crew sure knows how draw and animated very well pretty girls. Unfortunately, girls characters who become by thousands today have not the same attraction than MGM's Red thanks to TV networks who said no for sexy girls in the good sense.

For sure, Preston Blair was one of the finest old school animators; very impressive design and timing!

Disney had sexy women, even in those "kiddie" fairy tales (ever wonder why there are so many rear end views of the girls in them?).

But today whoever is running the USA cartoon studios (JK offered his opinion in one R&S: adult party cartoon commentary), as well as most american parents, appear to believe sex is the most evil thing on Earth, and anything suggesting or leading to it must be kept at bay or severely restricted.

In fact, one producer, given the choice of showing his children fantasy violence or fantasy sex, chose fantasy violence, because that "could never happen" to his kids, while sex could.

IMHO Some euro animators, and JK and a few others, do manage to combine sexy with comedy.

Gotta say John, I have never found this particular style to be appealing and/or sexy in the slightest. Perhaps her motion is sexy, but the character design is not. And I don't want to give the impression I'm a kid who simply didn't grow up with this stuff, because I'm just a few years younger than you.

Honestly, I see the style of the girls on Total Drama Island and see a blocky version of this character. Both are pretty ugly.

I'd hate to think it was as simple as the orientation of those in charge, but what do i know?

I've heard the excuse that 'girl leads don't rate high enough' & that boys don't watch girl cartoons but maybe girl leads would rate highly if they were appealing, fleshed-out characters rather than one-dimentional 'princesses'.

Take FLCL for example - the lead girl Haruko is great; comedic, slapstick, multi-faceted & sexy. What's not to like?

The first world far east are also way more into androgyny as a stylistic choice than we are. They have a far more progressive sense of appeal than we do. Even their live action male celebritites look like teenage girls.

i guess i don't know the answer...we barely even make cartoons anymore in the UK so it'll be a while before we see another Jessica Rabbit here.

As some have said, anime is chock full of em, AND sexy boys for that matter. The Japanese really do sexy well. Anime characters are just oozing w/ sexual appeal. Japanese teens and young adults swoon over anime/manga characters like most Americans do live action stars.

But John, sir, you've implied more than once that the execs are all gay. Is that really true? Why the heck aint there more gay friendly stuff then? Every freakin cartoon/animated movie just presents the same old hetero, gender-restrictive cliches, its getting so old imo. :)

i love preston blair's work. the go-to guy when you need a sexy woman animated. how many times has he animated a sexy girl dancing? why hasn't his work translated to brilliance from more current animators? who is today's go to guy for sexy women? i feel there is a void that needs to be filled.

I doubt that executives are gay, many of them have families. I don't understand why we throw our product under the bus in favor of the Japanese. There still is many positive attributes to this countries work, and we don't need young Americans trying to look up to or imitate a style that has been beaten like a dead horse.

I think this is a little exaggerated but I can see your point. Still, her breasts are HUGE and she certainly is not the type of character executives would usually approve. Now they would probably turn her into an action woman, cause other thing would be too sexist.

I think Jessica looked more feminine and sexy in Roger Rabbit's shorts, especially in the last one:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DASxbrKaDao